Transcript

00:00:01

>> In Britain, once the next Prime Minister triggers the process to leave the European Union, the country will be scrambling for new trade negotiators. It hasn't had to do its own trade deals for a long time, relying instead on the European Commission to strike these sort of accords.

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Unfortunately, trade negotiators aren't the only gap that Britain has at the moment. I'm from Reuters Breaking Views in London. Britain also has a basic skills gap which means that it has about a quarter of adults in England who lack the numeracy and literacy skills that the OECD qualifies as basic.

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There's been a lot of money spent on education but Britain has managed to muddle through. So this hasn't become a sore point perhaps due to the migration issue that will have to change if borders go up for new migrants and the sense that Britain will need more home grown talent.

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The problem is these sort of things take years if not decades to fix. It takes time for education policy to be changed. It depends if the money can be spent at a time of perhaps economic slow down when the Chancellor will have fewer budget revenues and more outlays on welfare spending.

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So it's gonna be a hard ask and there will be sort of something like a decade of deficit in skills ahead of us where we are also looking at putting up barriers. That's a very difficult circle to square. There is absolutely no change in their status at the moment.

00:01:26

Britain is a member of the European Union. The process has not been triggered. And there are no negotiations. Uncertainty is, however, very high, both for people from other European countries who are here and for people who are looking to come here.